It was a very non-traditional holiday for us this year. We had a wonderful dinner with friends last night and the boys got to open some presents, play with other bigger kids, and be silly in someone else’s house. Today we just tried to relax and not worry about anything, but that always seems to backfire.

We continued our playground exploration with a new park. We will call this one “the one with the airplanes” because of its proximity to the airport.

Trevor kept saying, “Gramma is on that airplane.” Then he finally told me that Gramma lives on an airplane. I bet she felt that way for a while!

Trevor’s had a lot of practice on his own “combo” so he is getting good at these diggers.

A tunnel under the road to explore…

I was trying to take a selfie with Brendan on my shoulders, but it just doesn’t work well with my giant camera. 🙂

One single chocolate covered pretzel…

Me too, Trevor

Time for yard work

We took this tree down in our backyard years ago, and today Bill just felt inspired to dig out the stump. With help, of course.

Last night, I saw a news story about the International Space Station being visible on Christmas Eve in the evening. The idea of the story was to take your kids out and look for it and then convince them it was Santa. I am not sure how I feel about that whole thing, but I did think it would be cool to show the boys the station. It was cloudy last night, but tonight was a better location anyway.

I think the boys liked the experience. They were excited about it, even though it was just a moving dot of light.

It might dip below freezing here tonight or tomorrow overnight. I hope everyone everywhere is warm and happy. Merry Christmas!

Here’s a giant plate of leftovers from yesterday. 😀

Right after the photo shoot, we took the boys on a “road trip” to Hole-in-the-Rock. They climbed the “mountain” up to the caves and got some nice views of the city. The weather was perfect.

There is a nice trail up to the holes.

Trevor said this rock won’t fit in Daddy’s truck.

Trevor wanted to climb to every ledge and hole

Brendan wanted to be carried to every ledge and hole

There were some very silly ducks begging

We can’t have a photo shoot without outtakes.

Brendan didn’t want the scarf on. It took Bill a while to get him to forget about it.

It is very challenging to get a good picture of a boy. It is nearly impossible to get a good picture of two boys.

Brendan never had the hat on his head for longer than 0.04 seconds. The only shots I got of him wearing the hat was when I could get Bill to drop it on and start taking pics before it got thrown. He HATED the hat.

“I said no HATS!!!!!!”

Trevor loved the hat and all of the glitter that it would shed. It just wouldn’t stay on his head right, it was so big on him.

“Seriously, no hats”

I love Trevor’s expressions, it is hard to pick my favorite

I just want to eat Brendan up with his little faces too

In retrospect, these particular candies were not good bribes for photo shoots.

He might as well have eaten paintballs

Holiday Photo Shoot Day! This serves as our family Christmas card. Maybe next year, I will actually have the ability to get cards done right. 2014 is slipping away!
After the photo shoot, we climbed a mountain – literally. That is another whole batch of photos that will have to wait until tomorrow!

Merry Christmas to all, with much love from Brendan the Snowman and Trevor the Snowman.